


A Beast of a Burden

by onstraysod



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Endearments, Established Relationship, Intimacy, Late Night Conversations, M/M, One Shot, sex and angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 16:09:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20820113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/pseuds/onstraysod
Summary: James drew in all that Henry gave, wrapped it like porcelain in tissue and packed it in straw, placed it inside of himself. What they faced was clearer now, the thinness of the line they walked drawn more distinctly beneath his feet, and he needed this: the heat of the moment, the memory of it, to push him forward and to ease him to sleep.





	A Beast of a Burden

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Florence + the Machine's "What the Water Gave Me"

“Is there anything that you need?”

_Sleep_, he’d told Stanley, the lie burning on his tongue even as melting snowflakes trickled icy against his skin. The journey from _Terror_ had never seemed longer, nor had his blood ever pumped with hotter demand, and as soon as he’d given the surgeon his curt instructions, Fitzjames hurried from the sick bay. He’d go to his bed as he’d suggested to Stanley, but he wouldn’t go alone.

The cabin door slid open to the rap of his knuckles, some recognizable tone in the interchange between the wood and the bones of his hand. Despite the lateness of the hour, Le Vesconte awaited his commander’s return: still dressed, a lantern burning on his desk, its light illuminating the sharp edges of the hunger in James’s eyes. _Henry_, James breathed, and he reached forward, curling his fingers over the waist of Le Vesconte’s trousers, tugging him near.

“I have need of you,” he spoke into Le Vesconte’s ear, and the lieutenant didn’t hesitate. 

The cold, the violence, the exhaustion: it was all, for the moment, burned away, becoming background noise like the scrape of ice against the hull, the incessant howl of the winter wind. The numbness in James’s fingers was chafed away by their movement across the buttons of Henry’s waistcoat, down the hard muscled line of his thigh; blood reheated, surging, rushing, rousing him to full sensation. His teeth found the tendon in Henry’s neck, the pulse of the lieutenant’s heartbeat against his tongue, and Henry groaned.

“Will you tell me,” he asked as James unfastened his trousers for him, as both the commander’s hands thrust into his drawers to stroke and tug him, “what’s happened to set you aflame?”

James titled back, opening the long line of his throat to Henry’s mouth as the lieutenant’s fingers swept up beneath his shirt, up his chest to circle a nipple stiffened first by cold, now by arousal. “After.”

After the blissful oblivion. The white expanse outside, painted with horrors, narrowed to a pinprick in James’s consciousness; the world became the confines of the bunk, the creak of its wooden frame, the tight enwrapping heat of Henry’s body. As the lieutenant braced himself against the bulkhead, James undertook a self-exorcism: emptying himself with each exhalation, each thrust. His hands filled themselves with Henry - bicep, chest, hip, prick - mouth licking up Henry’s flavor. They rocked towards a mutual annihilation of thought, memory: Henry panting, James biting his moans into the muscles of Henry’s shoulders, his body draped over the lieutenant’s back like a fall of snow.

When he’d wrung every drop from Henry and released himself like a floodgate breaking, James shuddered from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes, and they fell heaped together upon the mattress, a tangle of muscle and sweat. Henry turned beneath James, seeking his mouth, encircling his commander in arms that pinned him and held him still.

“What happened on _Terror_, James?”

“Men were whipped. For insubordination. For…” James bit his tongue, shook his head. “The creature… It came again.” He mumbled his dull recitation into Henry’s chest, too weightless yet to form sentences with any precision, and he lapsed into silence. Henry stroked him, combing his fingers against James’s scalp, asking nothing more.

After a while, James leaned up, brushing his lips against the lieutenant’s, angling his head so that it fit in the space between Henry’s jaw and shoulder. “Do you know, Dundy, all that time in China - all through the voyage on _Clio_ \- my whole life up until now, really - I’ve never feared for myself. Not once. I was certain that, whatever happened, it couldn’t touch me, not really. Not permanently. I believe I thought I was immortal, Henry.”

“No one is immortal, James. I suppose we all realize it at some time. But that isn’t so bad, is it? It would be the worst injustice of all, if some people got to live forever and some did not.”

“Of course you’re right.” A sigh as James traced the tip of his nose along the line of Henry’s collarbone. “It simply comes as something of a shock, you know. I had thought an exception might be made for you and I.”

Henry chuckled softly, hand stilling to caress a lank curl of James’s hair. “Perhaps there still will be for you, James. I can’t help but wonder if you have God as wrapped around your finger as you have everyone else.”

“You have a ridiculously high opinion of me, Dundy.”

“A failing which I’m sure you can forgive.”

James kissed a line across Henry’s sternum, ending at a peaked nipple that slotted warm and firm between his lips. He sucked, winning a breathy groan from Henry’s mouth and a rough caress of his arse from Henry’s hand.

“No, I would not take immortality even if God offered it,” James said, mouth wandering wet over Henry’s stomach. “Not if my darling Dundy could not share it with me.”

“There are many things I can bear, James, but not sentimentality. Not from you.”

James leaned up on his elbow to stare at Henry’s face, brow furrowing, wounded by the weariness of Henry’s tone. Shaking his silver waves across the pillow, Henry lifted a hand, caressing away the furrow between James’s eyebrows with his fingers. ”You must understand, dearest, that not everyone loves life with the same ferocity you do. I have never met anyone with such a lust for it as you possess. You burn with it, James. Through pure stubbornness and enthusiasm you will outlive me by a decade, at the least. And the greatest comfort I will have as I lay dying is the knowledge that James Fitzjames goes on.”

James found he could not speak. Words lodged useless in his throat: words frozen in unshed tears; words drowned out by joy; words that would betray all that he had locked away from the world, from himself. Words echoing with loneliness.

He laid his hand on Henry’s face, bent so that his brow rested against the lieutenant’s. Henry gripped James in return, held him firm against his body, his fingers sweeping up the long smooth line of James’s spine, up to curl over his shoulders.

“You know that, don’t you, James? I wouldn’t want to live in a world where it was otherwise.”

“Henry. I don’t deserve you.”

They’d shared many kinds of kisses: flirtatious, passionate, teasing. This was a kiss that took the place of speech, a sharing of breath and life, an exchange of meaning. James drew in all that Henry gave, wrapped it like porcelain in tissue and packed it in straw, placed it inside of himself. What they faced was clearer now, the thinness of the line they walked drawn more distinctly beneath his feet, and he needed this: the heat of the moment, the memory of it, to push him forward and to ease him to sleep.

He turned in Henry’s arms to face the bunk wall, his back nestled against Henry’s chest, and he clasped Henry’s hand, bringing it to rest palm-down near his sternum.

“Your heart is racing, my dearest,” Henry whispered into the hair that lay mussed against James’s neck.

“It’s fear, Henry. I know how it feels now, and I need you to help me bear it.”

“Don’t bear it, James.” Henry mouthed at James’s shoulders, raising his thigh to cradle the other man’s body more firmly against his own. “Give some of it to me. Let me bear it for you.”


End file.
